The real competitors to a Btree like data structure are trie based structures, such as burst tries, (optimised) q-fast and p-fast tries, level compressed tries, bucketed tries, path compressed tries, etc
Also optimised stratified trees (van emde boas) implementations where key length permits.
Full comparison based structures are rarely necessary: ints, floats, strings, etc can be dealt with by lexicographic structures
Tries in particular work outrageously well on (unrealistic) uniform random data with log-logarithmic operation times
The dynamic web-paper format is nice for expository instructional articles, but here as much time is spent skipping over dynamic stuff in search of human involvement, of which there is thankfully plenty, than reading about the invention itself. It has at least been copyedited by someone even if the structure feels somewhat robotic.
For a map<String, usize> of /usr/share/dict/words (with the value being the dict offset), measuring this consistently using 40% more RAM than std::collections::BtreeMap. Their claim of less memory usage was specifically for integers, so this is more a data point than a refutation.
Hi author here, first of all, thank you for taking time to read the AI slop, you probably already spend more time than I do on this repo, appreciated!
The inline key: yes, it applies to all kinds of integers and strings, and it exposes InlineKey traits that allow you to implement your own inline prefix.
The checklist items: I forget to cross them and they are all implemented, although I think the checklist item has nothing to do with bbtree. but this is definitely a flaw.
Very nice work. I'm working on stuff... adjacent to this I guess. I've been harping on the ideas that we have to be much more willing to reach for intrinsics, be laser focused on the cache lines, treat DRAM more like an async block device, but I can't believe I haven't thought to show the impact of coherence traffic! When I get some time I might try to apply some of my tricks to bbtree. DM me. I'd love to be able to reach out when I do.
Sure. I didn't mean to say that the author used CBMC, only that it's an example of model checking.
Incidentally, the docs don't seem to say what model checker was used. I don't think any of verus, shuffle, or ffs are technically model checkers (or at the very least they don't describe themselves as such)
I had a feeling when I read the title and then started reading the post, "this person must be young, probably a student." I think it's ironic that they're using such unscientific terminology like "fastest" given their background https://xiangpeng.systems/. So clearly, it's in the interest of marketing. Maybe some kind of job advertising/resume thing.
I can almost guarantee that someone has built a custom btree for their specific domain which is faster than this; and that they probably have some or all of the techniques used in this library that are the main contributors to performance, as well. Prefetching is probably the main one they'll claim, and I know personally of some proprietary implementations which have it.
I would like to see some more humility, but I suppose that when you've already resigned your own potential to being below an LLM, then what's the point.
It's not possible or useful for them to grow anymore. Some new frontier model next week will outdo whatever ephemerally useful project this person writes, right? That's the logic?
We have smart batching in Dip where we deduplicate work received in what we call a "batched" request. We use BTreeMap to deduplicate work in the preprocessing "scatter" phase.
This deduplication in smart batching is the slowest phase on most bulk write workloads (200k+ inserts in a single request) and takes sometimes up to 3x the time taken for the combined fanout + db writes + db commits + gather.
Also optimised stratified trees (van emde boas) implementations where key length permits.
Full comparison based structures are rarely necessary: ints, floats, strings, etc can be dealt with by lexicographic structures
Tries in particular work outrageously well on (unrealistic) uniform random data with log-logarithmic operation times
As a result, I’m skeptical of “fastest” here
B trees are great though, good work!
For a map<String, usize> of /usr/share/dict/words (with the value being the dict offset), measuring this consistently using 40% more RAM than std::collections::BtreeMap. Their claim of less memory usage was specifically for integers, so this is more a data point than a refutation.
The inline key: yes, it applies to all kinds of integers and strings, and it exposes InlineKey traits that allow you to implement your own inline prefix.
The checklist items: I forget to cross them and they are all implemented, although I think the checklist item has nothing to do with bbtree. but this is definitely a flaw.
I also appreciate your paper/work on bf-tree, I started a hobbyist filesystem based on it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50218616
The quote at the top isn't related to what any of this is so it is pretty funny while being obnoxious
What does model checking mean here?
[0]: https://www.cprover.org/cbmc/
Incidentally, the docs don't seem to say what model checker was used. I don't think any of verus, shuffle, or ffs are technically model checkers (or at the very least they don't describe themselves as such)
Bold claim...
I can almost guarantee that someone has built a custom btree for their specific domain which is faster than this; and that they probably have some or all of the techniques used in this library that are the main contributors to performance, as well. Prefetching is probably the main one they'll claim, and I know personally of some proprietary implementations which have it.
I would like to see some more humility, but I suppose that when you've already resigned your own potential to being below an LLM, then what's the point.
It's not possible or useful for them to grow anymore. Some new frontier model next week will outdo whatever ephemerally useful project this person writes, right? That's the logic?
This is only a statement that could be written by someone that doesn't read the code.
We have smart batching in Dip where we deduplicate work received in what we call a "batched" request. We use BTreeMap to deduplicate work in the preprocessing "scatter" phase.
This deduplication in smart batching is the slowest phase on most bulk write workloads (200k+ inserts in a single request) and takes sometimes up to 3x the time taken for the combined fanout + db writes + db commits + gather.
Will try out with Bbtree and see how it goes.